From
Debbie Zarzecki

My fondest memory of Julia Child is from one of her early TV shows. I was still living with my mom and dad, and watching Julia was a family tradition. On this particular episode she was attempting to make a fancy layer cake decorated with edible swans. Attempting was the key word. Whether it was because of the studio lights or the way she assembled the cake itself, it simply would not cooperate with her. She was placing one of the swans on top of the cake when one side completely collapsed! The swan fell off taking the icing with it. In front of the camera with millions of people watching, Julia never lost her cool. She simply pushed the side of the cake back up, put the swan back on top, and kept right on giving instructions on how to assemble the cake. My folks and I laughed at her misfortune, at the same time admiring her tenacity. She always was and still is grace under pressure. No matter how many times things went wrong, and they often did, she just kept on cooking. She made it okay to make mistakes and be messy in the kitchen; that it's all part of the process (and fun) of learning how to cook. Thanks Julia, you are truly one of a kind!

Lois Berkowitz
Newtonville, MA

In 1973 I sat in the Lord & Taylor beauty salon in Boston getting a haircut when I saw in the mirror a tall woman in curlers briskly walk behind my stylist's chair. Doing a doubletake, I knew from her TV persona that the woman unmistakably was Julia Child. With a year-old undergraduate degree in human nutrition and food from Cornell, a sadly unchallenging food service job, and freshly coifed hair, I summoned the courage to seek out Mrs. Child for some career advice. Unabashed in her curlers and protective smock, she enthusiastically discussed several journalistic options with me, and infused me with a self-confidence I didn't have beforehand. Though I didn't land a writing job at that time, without a doubt her warmth and support,combined with the terrific role modeling she has always presented to women, contributed to my pursuing new directions and adventures.

Stephen Jacobs
Rochester, NY

I began cooking at the age of six, and remember watching Julia Child with my mother off and on for years. However my favorite "episode" is one of her less conventional, and likely less well-known, cooking videos.

I was fifteen years old when the National Air and Space Museum (part of the Smithsonian Institution) opened on July 1, 1996. One of the Museum's early exhibits, perhaps even one of the originals, was on theories of the origin of life on Earth.

The exhibit explained that a mix of biological and chemical compounds in seawater was carried into the sky by evaporation, zapped in electrical storms and returned to the sea as rain. Over time, as a result of this process, building blocks of simple life appeared in the seas.

To demonstrate this process a videotape showed a dual-chambered glass container, not unlike a still. The lower half was filled with a mix of chemicals, biological compounds and "sea water." The upper half contained an electric arc as a stand-in for lightning. The two chambers were connected by glass tubes that allowed the passage of water vapor up tot he arc and condensed water back down.

The name of the mixture in the lower half of this contraption was "Primordial Soup" and to explain it, along with an appropriately authoritative scientist, was Julia. The video opened and closed as if it was one of her regular cooking shows. To this day I can still hear her in my head, "This is Julia Child, cooking Primordial Soup!"

Alas, I never did get the recipe.

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